


In the Silence That Followed

by willneverbeordinary



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Songfic, Will is in a lot of emotional pain, and the author is very very sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:57:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willneverbeordinary/pseuds/willneverbeordinary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The last thing Will hears before he pulls them over the edge of the cliff is the sound of Hannibal’s beating heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Silence That Followed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [willsfaceismydesign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willsfaceismydesign/gifts).



> Idea/prompt by [willsfaceismydesign](http://willsfaceismydesign.tumblr.com/). Happy Birthday, darling!
> 
> Lyrics in italics from Adele's song "Hello".

**I.**

_Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump._

The last thing Will hears before he pulls them over the edge of the cliff is the sound of Hannibal’s beating heart.

When he manages to tear them from the grasp of the Atlantic, from waves that want to pull them down into the dark, and hold Hannibal in his arms so he can press his ear to Hannibal’s chest again, he doesn’t hear a thing.

With hands that shake so badly that he can barely move them, Will tries to feel for a pulse. There is nothing. His fingers find and clumsily peel back Hannibal’s sweater, waterlogged and heavy, to reveal the gunshot wound. It’s just a mess of tissue washed cleaned by the ocean. Will presses his hand to it and blood sluggishly seeps up to meet his fingers. When he moves his hand there is just a tiny trickle of pink as seawater finds its way out.

Will clutches Hannibal close and says his name over and over and over. Hannibal’s head just lolls limply on his shoulders and Will cradles it and holds Hannibal close to his chest and rocks him. He tells Hannibal that he has to stay with him. He touches his face with shaking fingers and tells him that he is beautiful. He strokes away the strands of stray hair that clings to Hannibal’s forehead and he tells him that he sees him. He moves his hands over skin painted in blooming watercolours by the rocks and the waves and touches his lips to unresponsive, icy once and he is already shaking so badly that it’s impossible to tell that the sob that tears through him rattles his entire body from the very core.

It doesn’t matter how many times he whispers ‘no, no, no, please, no’ and how many times he tries to breathe into Hannibal’s mouth and tries to bring him back because it makes no difference.

Hannibal’s heart has stopped beating.

And Will tilts his head back and opens his mouth and screams at the indifferent sky.

**II.**

_Hello from the other side._

When Will wakes up all he hears is silence. Even with the rustling of the hospital bed blanket and the steady beeping of the heartrate monitor, it is deafening. It’s compact in the way it presses against his eardrums. He covers his ears with his hands and closes his eyes and breaths quick breaths through his nose and searches in his mind for the sound of a heartbeat thudding steadily.

It takes him a while to find it but he does. He finds the cliff and he finds Hannibal and he finds himself in Hannibal’s arms and he finds himself bringing them both back to the house.

A knock on the door startles him and the image he has painted for himself slips away as the door opens.

Jack comes through it followed by Alana.

He had almost expected to see Hannibal, the way he had seen Abigail, but he doesn’t.

His voice is raw and rough and it cracks as he speaks. “Is Hannibal-?”

Jack’s eyes are shiny and Alana’s are cold. Jack is the one who speaks.

“You almost died a hero, Will. Two devils in one fell swoop. I’m glad you lived.”

Will focuses his gaze on the ceiling and blinks hard.

**III.**

_I must have called a thousand times._

It’s been two months since the hospital discharged him. His house in Wolf Trap had been left empty, never sold, and he brought Winston with him and Molly had said that she understood; she had hugged him and wiped the tears gathering in her eyes with the back of her hand, giving a broken little laugh, and told him to be good now.

Some days he made it out if the bed for longer times than to use the bathroom. Most days he couldn’t even move.

Every single day he felt as if something had been ripped out of him.

It was as if the part of him that had been connected to Hannibal had been gorged out, torn from him as flesh from bone and leaving a raw and bleeding, pulsing ache behind.

At first he had worried about nightmares. They never came. He would fall asleep and wake up and his mind had trudged through those hours in an endless, ink-black world. His nights had become like the Atlantic he had thrown himself into; a boundless mass of darkness that rolled up and fell over him and submerged him in a sightless, soundless world.

The circles around his eyes grew darker, his skin pale. His joints ached. His head was heavy and it was difficult to breathe.

Will moved through the house some days. He touched his fishing equipment. He pushed his thumb to the sharp point of the hook and watched it pierce the skin and watched the droplet of blood and as he sucked it off his finger he felt a little bit closer to Hannibal.

He had a few missed calls from Jack but they were old and no new ones came. He had one text from Alana. He scrolled though his missed calls but Molly’s name didn’t show up. He stared at the screen with dull eyes as he scrolled until Hannibal’s name startled him.

Of course it was there. That time when Will hadn’t made it to his session and Hannibal had come and found him he had called him three times and left one voice message.

Will had never listened to it.

His fingers shook as he pressed the buttons to play it and he held the phone to his ear. His heart trembled in his chest and his breaths came in short and shallow bursts and then he heard Hannibal’s voice and the air in his lungs left in a rush.

He played it again and he laughed weakly and brokenly at the edge of a sob and he curled up on his side and pressed the phone so tightly to his ear and played it again and again and again.

The next day he was able to get out of bed and make himself something of a breakfast with coffee and eggs. He listened to the message as soon as he woke and as he sat down to eat.

Will plays it back several times during the day and as night falls and he sits with a tumbler of whisky and clean clothes after a shower, and with Winston contently curled up on the floor beside the armchair, he calls Hannibal’s office. The signal rings out but a voice informs him that the number has been disconnected.

Will clutches the phone in his hand and trembles from fighting the urge to throw it into the wall.

Instead he pocked it, emptied his whisky and fell into bed. He rolls over on his back and stares unseeing at the ceiling for a few minutes before he pulls the phone out again and dials Hannibal’s private number.

Hannibal’s voice answers him and the wound inside Will both bleeds anew and hurts just a little less.

He calls again and closes his eyes and smiles.

“Hello, Will.”

“Hello, Dr. Lecter.” Will rolls over to his side. “I gave my dogs away to Molly.”

The line crackles silently for a moment. “Did you?”

“I kept Winston.”

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want you to be alone, Will.”

Will curls in on himself, his voice is low and the each syllable feels like a shard of glass in his throat when he speaks. “I am alone without you. I will never be anything but alone now.”

He blinks against the tears that gather and Hannibal smiles gently at him. He reaches out as if to brush away the one that’s fallen and Will scrubs his hand over his face and Hannibal’s hand comes to rest on the mattress in the space between them.

“It hurts,” Will says. “The silence that you left behind.”

Hannibal’s eyelids fall down briefly as if he would have nodded had he been standing. “It would. I became a part of you. Separation must have hurt like tearing off a limb.”

“Yes.”  

“Tell me,” Hannibal says, “what is left out there for you now?”

Will draws a shaking breath. His voice trembles as he speaks. “I’m- afraid I am going to try to be close to you in any way I can.”

“I hope you are not risking finding yourself in a different circle of hell than where I am? I wouldn’t want you to be pecked by Harpies all by yourself.”

A murky laugh bubbles up Will’s throat and spills past his lips. He looks at Hannibal and gives a wry grin and Hannibal gives a small smile in turn. Just a slight quirk to the corners of his mouth and a glint in his eyes.

“No.” Will reaches for Hannibal, places a hand on his chest and feels the steady beat of his heart. “You know it’s not my life I’m afraid I might end. You’re still inside my head.”

Hannibal’s smile widens and his eyes gleam like coal and amber.

**IV.**

_To tell you I am sorry for everything that I’ve done._

Will spends an entire month calling Hannibal’s number each and every day. Of course no one is there to pick up and he listens to the recorded voice of a man dead by his hand, but it’s easy enough for him to imagine Hannibal there when he can at least hear him. Or hear the memory; an imprint left behind, a small fragment in the vast void that had opened up in space and time in Hannibal’s absence.

One day he calls and a metallic and clinical voice informs him that the number does not exist.

Will throws his phone into the wall with such force that it cracks and splinters.

He screams.

He stands in the middle of the room, chest heaving and shaking hands clenched into fists, until Winston carefully approaches him and touches his nose to the back of Will’s hand. Will breathes out a deep sigh and pets his dog gently on the head.

Learning how to become a decent cook takes time but time is the only thing Will has in abundance.

The day he gets in his car he still hasn’t decided. When he knocks on the door he still hasn’t decided. When Bedelia opens it and he sees her face, that is the moment he decides.

He has none of the necessary surgical skills and the risk of her bleeding out as he cuts through her leg seems very high. She doesn’t but it is probably a near thing. Between blood loss and drugs she is hazy and unstable on her chair once he sits her down at the dinner table.

“Who is the third plate for?” Bedelia says, eyes trying to focus.

Will clenches his jaw and doesn’t reply.

“I’m assuming it is for him.”

“Hannibal’s dead.” Will’s voice is clipped.

“Yet here you are, eating me as he would have and setting a plate for him.” She gives a cold smile. “Hannibal does have agency in the world, after all, it would seem.”

Will stills. He pushes the water glass half an inch back and touches the knife to align with the serviette. “I- wish I could talk to him one last time.”

Bedelia dips her head. “And this- is your idea of closure?”

“Something like that,” Will says before he leaves to go get the dish he has prepared for them.

Before he steps into the room he sees Bedelia hiding a knife underneath a serviette and carefully sneaking it into her lap. He walks in and serves the meat and pours the wine. He tells himself that whatever happens happens, just as it is meant to.

Will takes the first bite, closes his eyes and opens them to Hannibal smiling at him from his seat.

He smiles back.

**V.**

_Hello from the other side._

Th-thump.

_I must have called a thousand times._

Th-thump.

_To tell you I am sorry for everything that I’ve done._

Th-


End file.
